MOC: Oin

 Dwarves do not arrive all-in-one packs, so here's Oin (portrayed by talented Kiwi actor John Callen) in your service, brave northern dwarf and pharmacist of Thorin Oakenshield's company.

This was, like Balin and Dwalin, an interesting character to build. I started with the head and beautifully braided beard. I got the handcuff idea previously, and I had to built this older gentleman just for use that design. I came out pretty well, I think. The basic shapes of the head are quite similar than on my previous dwarves, but I altered the nose and some other bit to make them look individuals.

Like Dwalin, Oin has movable arms. The shoulder joints are built using T-bar hinges (one of the best pieces ever) and elbows are ball joints. The hands have six points of articulation on each. I gave him tight fingers as he has fabulous knitted mittens on the movie.

Another part of the original idea was using "brick-bricks" on the woollen cardinal as the texture of the overcoat. I like the effect. The torso has quite a lot SNOT on it, as it it built studs facing on the both sides. It isn't the stablest build I have ever done, but stays intact pretty well. He has a belt like other dwarves and a grey scarf.

The boots were a bit challenging. They they have quite a flat and rounded shape which was hard to shape with my limited arsenal of oddly-shaped brown parts. Well, they are not especially flat, but at least they have round shape and those wool shreds on them.

The staff was interest, too. I made several concepts, but didn't have needed pieces for all of them. Now I think that the final design of the ends is a bit oversized, but at least the shape is right... I will change them a bit before the next exhibition or show.

I'm already building the next dwarf, the one who is vegetarian, but I might take some time before I can finish him. I'm not sure if I have enough pieces, but we will see that. I've already built the head, and that's usually the most fun and interesting part.

-Pate-keetongu

EDIT: Here's a reference pic:

MOC: Dwarf brothers Balin & Dwalin

 I've spend hours and hours of browsing pictures and concept art about The Hobbit movies during the passing year. It's a fantastic film (and luckily we have more to wait for) and has some incredibly cool designs. Here's couple of dwarves, Balin (fantastically portrayed by Ken Stott) and Dwalin (Badassly portrayed by Graham McTavish), old fighters and loyal friends and relatives of Thorin Oakenshield.

You may remember  Balin from the bust I made on December. I wanted to built the whole figure back then, but I thought that I wouldn't have enough dark red. But some time later I came up with an idea how to built those beautiful ornamental bits on his jacket using cheese pieces hold between 1x2x2 panels. It looked very good, so I couldn't resist building the rest of Fundin's son. The panels are Trans-black, so the cheese slopes used are normal red and DBley.
 The only movable parts are the fingers, but Balin is more of a counsellor that fighter anyways. He also has a boots with the same ski-slope motif than in his white beard. And yes, those are SW engine blocks used as the sleeves.

Dwalin was a lot harder fellow to build. He is quite of a fighter, the "Scary biker" of the dwarves, as actor Graham McTavish mentioned. I wanted to give him movable arms so I could pose him with his warhammer and axes. But the hardest part was letting go not ta the angled fur pieces on his shoulders. The battle droid arm  design was here from the start, I liked the pattern of mixed tan and dark tan pieces, but I tried couple of alternatives before this one. It's surprisingly hard to add odd-shaped angled parts to basic SYSTEM builds like this.

The weapons Dwalin uses were eather fun to build. The axes can be putted on his back.  They're quite simple, but I like their dwarven feel. the warhammer was a bit trickier one, as it has some shapes that are pretty impossible to capture with LEGO bricks, but I think I succeeded pretty well.

Dwalin's legs look quite small in these photos. Now I think I should have put them a bit further from each other, but it's also the angle of these photos which makes them look a bit odd. It's tricky to photograph these stiff SYSTEM figures with all that Bionicle stuff.

Pic for reference, taken from http://heirsofdurin.files.wordpress.com

Killing a dragon and reclaiming the lost homeland is not a job for pair of dwarves, so I promise there will be (at least one) more. More of that later. But it will have something to do with bad hearing and mixing up ravens and thrushes...

-Pate-keetongu